A self-help blog from Molly Merson, Berkeley Therapist. Informed by psychoanalytic, intersubjective, social justice, and relational theories about human experiences, relationships, and the ways we move through the world. Topics include racism, depression, eating disorders, body image, growing up, anxiety, inner critic, and grief and loss. Reading this blog does not imply a therapeutic relationship with me.

I was featured today on a podcast with my colleague Rebecca Wong, where we journeyed together through a beautiful and winding conversation about politics, good-enough parents, historical and cultural trauma, loss, and the infancy of the internet. It was one of those conversations that felt like sitting in a cozy chair chatting with an old friend over a glass of strong whiskey in front of a crackling, warm fire. (If you’d like to listen, here is the link: https://www.practiceofbeingseen.com/episode/50)

As is often the case when listening back on a conversation that’s been recorded, when the episode aired today I had a chance to hear the person I was a month ago: what was on my mind, where both our minds took us, what was happening in the cultural milieu, and the ideas we were shaping together in that organic space and time. But today, I am a different person, of course; I have had new experiences, thought new thoughts, made new links, and have had time to let our conversation percolate. At the time, and today, our conversation about suicide left me with a strange feeling. I will try to articulate that feeling well enough here today.

"Sunday neurosis" was a term coined by psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi to describe the anxiety and stress we feel on Sundays right before we have to go back to work on Monday. I hear a lot of people in my practice talk about this, and I'm not immune to it either – that feeling on Sunday nights of all the anticipated problems in the week ahead seeming to spiral towards you, as though Sisyphus has let go of that damn boulder once and for all and, whoops, looks like you're going to be the one carrying it now if it doesn't smash you first!

This feeling of anxiety and stress is true for so many of us who work the traditional Monday through Friday schedule. This is also something that happens to many of us during the holidays. Some people experience a "vacation brain" that can be blissful while it's happening, but excruciating to come back from. While Ferenczi didn't acknowledge that this same type of anxiety can happen the day before you start your working life after a long holiday, it is incredibly common.

Your mother's death - either by neglect, abandonment, or physical death - may be a contributor to your current distress. I have years of experience working with people whose mothers have died, and not all of these relationships were positive. If you are interested in exploring your relationship with your mother and how her death has shaped your life, I am uniquely qualified to help you name and explore your relationship to your mother, and to assist your mourning process.

If you are one of the tens of millions of people who experience clinical depression or bipolar disorder, you probably know what it’s like to feel shitty about yourself, irritable about interactions with others, afraid of what people might think about you, and hopeless about being able to do anything about it. You might also feel angry and frustrated – maybe even a sense of being trapped inside your feelings, with no way out.
Suddenly, what was pleasurable feels prickly, and people you may have felt connected to feel distant and irritating, like they “just don’t get you.” Maybe this leads to you wanting to retreat, to isolate, to push people away.

These are extremely hard feelings to bear alone, and yet that’s what depression encourages from you: to break healing connection because you feel, on some level, already disconnected and overwhelmed.

If you take pause in your feelings, either while they’re happening or soon thereafter, you may find you’ve been feeling this way for much of your life—perhaps not in any way you could name, exactly, and maybe you feel this way intermittently—but it’s as familiar to you as it is unfamiliar to people who do not have bipolar disorder or clinical depression. There’s no such thing as “normal,” but there are ways you can manage your depression and negotiate its “hooks” in you. Although the feeling is pervasive and often overwhelming, and it colors the way you see yourself and the world around you, it is possible to get to know it, and give yourself and these feelings the attention you both need.

Go into the feeling, and find where it resonates in your body. Spend some time with this exercise when you feel the irritability and sadness coming on:

1. Lie on your back in a quiet spot, and allow your breathing to settle however it wants to. Find the places your breath settles in your body; notice your chest rise, notice your shoulders, notice the muscles in your face and neck. Just notice, don’t try to change.
2. Allow your breath to explore your body, and notice what it finds. Breathe into different parts of your body: Your chest, your shoulders, your belly, your arms and fingertips, your hips, your back, and with each breath allow an exploration of tightness and resistance to happen.
3. When you find places that feel tight, achey, itchy, or uncomfortable, allow your breath to reach in and touch the tightness; on the out-breath, allow your body to let go. We’re not trying to “get rid” of the tightness or pain, just trying to make room to connect to it. You may spend a few breaths on the tighter parts of your body.
4. When you find these tight or resistant areas, in between your in-breath and out-breath, ask them: What do you need right now?
5. Then ask, How can I help you?
6. It may take some time, and quite a few breaths, to sit with the spots you discover and ask these questions. Just allow your breath to move, notice your pain and tightness, and ask for permission to know it.
7. When you are ready, slowly allow some movement back into your body and allow yourself to come back into the room.

When your awareness and attention have come back into the room, I encourage you to write down any sensation and any feelings you may have. Don’t worry about censoring yourself, just write.

This can be a very evocative exercise for people, and you may find a range of feelings. You may also find that nothing happens, which can also be evocative for some of us. If that’s the case, I encourage you to meditate on the “nothing,” because there is information there, too. Sometimes, “nothing” is a way to protect you from a deep sadness or trauma. Processing this experience in therapy can sometimes feel safer than doing it on your own, so I encourage you to bring your feelings about this exercise to your therapist, who can help you sit with things that might feel uncomfortable to do on your own.

For more information about depression or bipolar disorder, and to find community who shares these or similar experiences, take a look at The Neurodiversity Paradigm and The Icarus Project. This post is not meant to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease. To begin therapy with a licensed professional with expertise in many types of mood disorders, give me a call at 510-594-4035 for a free phone consultation. I can point you toward resources that can be helpful to you in this process. It may take at least 24 hours for me to respond to your call, so if you or your loved one are suicidal or in crisis, take it seriously and call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room immediately. If you or your loved one are contemplating suicide, go to http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or call 1-800-273-8255 to speak with someone 24 hours a day.

I provide therapy in Berkeley, CA to individuals looking to delve into old patterns, explore overwhelming emotions, and find room for self-love and self-care amidst a harsh and unforgiving inner critic.

To cite this page:Merson, M. (2014) Getting to Know the Harder Feelings of Depression and Bipolar Disorder. Retrieved month/day/year from http://mollymerson.com/2014/07/26/getting-to-know-the-harder-feelings/

If you love someone who feels the emptiness and shame of depression, you have probably seen them feeling uncomfortable, distressed, lethargic, and despondent. Maybe you’ve tried to cheer them up, only to be met with bitterness or even emptiness. If that’s true for you, you can probably relate to this spectrum of feelings: Exhaustion, frustration, helplessness, sadness, and fear. What, if anything, is helpful? Since so much has been written about depression, I’ll link to a few articles I like and let you read through to learn more about how depression impacts folks. Something important to note, however, is that depression is deeply personal, and linked to deep-rooted shame. These aren’t things you can fix by rationalizing with someone, or by suggesting something like “mind over matter.” If these are tactics you’ve used in the past, don’t worry. You probably noticed they didn’t help, and that’s why you’re looking for something else to help you. (Also, did you know spending time with furry animals is known to increase oxytocin, which can chemically impact mood?)

Ask what would help. They may not know what would be helpful, but they might surprise you. If they respond with something that feels impossible (“It would help if you could make this feeling go away!”), let them express it, and agree. “I wish I could make it go away.” Sometimes, making tea, offering a hot water bottle, or the aforementioned furry animal can be helpful to regulate the oceanic depths of the sadness, and help the person feel a bit more buoyant.

Stay with them. If possible, stay with the person as long as it feels ok to you. If you have a relationship that involves touch, rubbing their back, shoulders, or the top of their head lovingly can help remind the person you are there, even if you can’t make the feeling disappear. Try not to leave until you know what safety measures may need to be taken, and if you can’t stay, make sure the person has access to their usual resources (sponsor, therapist, friend, pastor, etc).

Stay with your discomfort. Your person is really going through it, which means you will likely be going through it, too. It is said that one of the ways therapy works is that the therapist processes, or “metabolizes,” the feelings of the patient, which can help the patient unconsciously process the feelings, too. You can offer your therapeutic presence by “staying with”, as opposed to trying to distract from, the discomfort you feel, which can help the person you’re close to release and work through some of their own feelings.

“Feelings are states, not traits.” This quotation from Dr. Dan Siegel really sums up the depression process: These are moods that seem to stick like glue to the fabric of your loved one’s life—so much so that it is easy to forget that feelings are states of being that come and go, that are sometimes pressure-ful and sometimes light, that, if you stay with the discomfort (See #3), will pass, and something new will take its place.

Don’t take it personally. Chances are good that, depending on your relationship, your loved one has felt this way long before you came into their life. This is probably not about you, even though it may be very deeply impacting you-- and even though you may have said or done something that triggered a feeling. You may be having a lot of feelings about the pain you see your loved one experiencing, but that pain probably has very little to do with you. What you can impact and be accountable for is how you talk to and understand your loved one when they’re going through this difficulty.

Allow yourself to feel “all the feelings." It is so necessary for you to get as much self-care as possible. (See my list of inexpensive and accessible methods of self-care here.) This includes feeling whatever it is that you are feeling. Remember, some of it may be the feelings of your loved one that you are processing through your own system right now. If you do not allow yourself space to have your own experience, the feelings will build up in you, and may cause resentment, anger, and even the loss of the relationship.

Process your feelings in your own therapy. Being in your own therapeutic treatment can be so useful to you right now. There are likely deep-seated reasons you are close to someone who is depressed; and even if there's not a family history of caretaking in your life, being with someone who is going through so much can bring up feelings that you will want to process and understand. If there is an issue that you feel is directly related to a boundary you have in your relationship, find a time when your feeling and your loved one’s depressive episode are not acute to begin to talk about it. Individual or couples’ therapy is an excellent place to bring up feelings that don’t feel like they can be contained safely in the relationship. Which brings me to:

Discover your boundaries, and keep them firm but not rigid. Boundaries are an essential element to any healthy relationship, with others and with yourself. Discover what and how much you will tolerate, and give yourself full freedom to hold that line. While different circumstances call for different measures, it's important to know what your limits are, and do your best to notice when you are feeling depleted. This is a good time to recharge with self care, however it suits you best.

For more information about depression, or to begin therapy in Berkeley, CA with a licensed professional with expertise in many types of depression, give me a call at 510-594-4035 for a free phone consultation. I can point you toward resources that can be helpful to you in this process. It may take at least 24 hours for me to respond to your call, so if you or your loved one are suicidal or in crisis, take it seriously and call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room immediately. If you or your loved one are contemplating suicide, go to http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or call 1-800-273-8255 to speak with someone 24 hours a day.

I provide therapy in Berkeley, CA to individuals looking to delve into old patterns, explore overwhelming emotions, and find room for self-love and self-care amidst a harsh and unforgiving inner critic.

To cite this page:Merson, M. (2014) 8 Things To Do When Your Loved One Is Depressed. Retrieved month/day/year from http://mollymerson.com/2014/06/17/8-things-to-do-when-your-loved-one-is-depressed/